[[quoteright:330:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/New_Orleans_Montage_1736.jpg]][[caption-width-right:330:A Crescent City montage, courtesy of Wiki/{{Wikipedia}}. From top left: A typical New Orleans mansion off St. Charles Avenue, a streetcar passing by Loyola University and Tulane University, the skyline of the Central Business District, Jackson Square, and a view of Royal Street in the French Quarter.]]

->''"New Orleans resembles Genoa or Marseilles, or Beirut or the Egyptian Alexandria, more than it does New York.... Like Havana and Port-au-Prince, New Orleans is within the orbit of a Hellenistic world that never touched the North Atlantic. The Mediterranean, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico form a homogenous, though interrupted, sea."''-->-- '''A. J. Liebling''', ''The Earl of Louisiana'' (quoted in ''AConfederacyOfDunces'')

Ah, the Big Easy, famous for Mardi Gras, [[HollywoodVoodoo voodoo]], and {{Jazz}} music, despite not inventing any of these. Commonly associated with the Cajun culture, despite being a few hours away from any of it. Also, hurricanes. The French have a consulate there. Another claim to fame is the food; you can find almost any kind of seafood (except lobster) here. The squeamish can rest easy about how well-cooked their food is.

* Some streets are narrow, because they were originally built for horse and carriage. Do not complain, they indicate that a natural disaster has never annihilated the surrounding area and created room for a wider road.* Tourists think they're cute by pronouncing the name of the city "N'awlins". To not incur the wrath of a local, just go with "Nu-OH'rlins"[[note]]For the city, at least. The parish would be pronounced "Or-LEANS".[[/note]]. Once you've lived here a couple years, your speech will naturally slur it down, but don't force it.* If you ask for directions in New Orleans, don't expect to hear "North", "South", "East", or "West". [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_metropolitan_area#.22Eastbank.22_and_.22Westbank.22 Due to the Mississippi River which curves through the middle of the city,]] you'll likely hear something like "Go up on Saint Charles Avenue" if you wish to leave the French Quarter and go Uptown, for example, even though to outsider's eyes, Saint Charles Avenue "appears" to go south and wind back up to going north. Although it sounds complicated, it's really not that hard to figure out when you look at a map. If you wish to study the geography a bit further, a good guide can be found [[http://wikitravel.org/en/New_Orleans#Knowing_which_way_is_up here.]]** Another thing to remember: "Eastbank" and "Westbank" are in reference to the location of the river. This is probably what would trip up visitors the most, since there are fragments of the East Bank that are geographically west of the West Bank, and vice-versa.

Related tropes:[[index]]* TheBigEasy* ItsAlwaysMardiGrasInNewOrleans* {{Jazz}}* SouthernGothic: New Orleans is a favorite setting for Southern Gothic works, especially in vampire fiction, perhaps because of the associating the area has with Voodoo.[[/index]]----!!New Orleans in popular media:

* Season 9 of ''Series/TheRealWorld''* ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven''* ''Chief Wiggum PI'', the fake spinoff of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''* The ''Film/JamesBond'' movie ''Film/LiveAndLetDie.''* ''K-Ville''* ''New Orleans'' a 1947 film starring Music/BillieHoliday and Music/LouisArmstrong.* ''ComicBook/CaptainCarrotAndHisAmazingZooCrew'' features its [[TheMultiverse Earth-C]] counterpart, "Mew Orleans."* ''Film/TheCuriousCaseOfBenjaminButton'', though it averts most tropes associated with the city* Abby Scuito from ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' hails from the city and would like to point out that the jazz is played after the burial. There is now an entire NCIS spin-off that is set in New Orleans.* VideoGame/Left4Dead2's "The Parish" campaign takes place in the French Quarter.* Creator/AnneRice. She authors some quite exquisite scenery about the Big Easy: ''Literature/ExitToEden'', ''Literature/InterviewWithAVampire'', ''[[MayDecemberRomance Belinda]]'', ''Feast of All Saints'', ''[[Literature/TheVampireChronicles Blood Canticle]]'', ''[[Literature/TheVampireChronicles Blackwood Farms]]'', ''Taltos, The Witching Hour'', ''[[Literature/TheVampireChronicles Memnoch the Devil]]'', and ''[[Literature/TheVampireChronicles The Tale of the Body Thief]]''.* ''Disney/ThePrincessAndTheFrog''* Werner Herzog's ''Film/TheBadLieutenantPortOfCallNewOrleans''* HBO's ''Series/{{Treme}}'', from the creators of ''Series/TheWire'', explores the aftermath of Katrina.* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooOnZombieIsland''* ''Film/TheExpendables''' main operations are based here. Oddly, the city is established in the first film by a sweeping crane shot of... Baton Rouge.* The first ''VideoGame/GabrielKnight''.* ''Film/AStreetCarNamedDesire''* ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'' -- Rhett and Scarlett honeymoon in New Orleans* ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'' -- Roger and Andy honeymooned here too.* ''AConfederacyOfDunces'', which many locals consider the most accurate portrayal the city has ever gotten.* ''Film/DejaVu''* ''Film/TheSkeletonKey'', though only a few scenes are set here (mostly when the protagonist's BlackBestFriend explains to her about hoodoo). The rest of the time, it's set in the countryside.* One ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' strip has Calvin wonder where people go when they die, to which Hobbes responds that he believes they play saxophone for an all-girl cabaret in New Orleans. "So you believe in Heaven?" "Call it what you like."* New Orleans is ''TabletopGame/VampireTheRequiem'''s setting of choice, likely due to its association with vampire fiction. * Features several times in Creator/RickRiordan's mythology books:** Nico di Angelo spends some time in New Orleans before ''[[{{Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians}} The Sword of Hades]]'' starts. Apparently, he likes celebrating death here (his father is a death god).** Hazel Levesque (also a child of the same death god) of ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'' fame has her homeland in New Orleans, and parts of her flashbacks are set here. She attended a segregated school located in the city alongside Sammy [[spoiler: Valdez, Leo's great-grandfather, which means that Leo's ancestral home is here too.]]** The Kane siblings travel to New Orleans in ''[[{{Main/TheKaneChronicles}} The Red Pyramid]]'' to meet Anubis. Much like Nico above, he apparently likes the whole "celebrating death" thing (this time, it's because he ''is'' a death god).* Literature/ChroniclesOfNick* ''Series/TheOriginals'', the spinoff of ''TheVampireDiaries'', is set here (and revels in its setting).* ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryCoven''* New Orleans is completely destroyed in the opening episode of ''Anime/AldnoahZero'' when a Knight Castle [[ColonyDrop crashes into the center of the city at relativistic speed]], setting off an explosion comparable in destruction to a nuclear blast.* "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E145TheMasks The Masks]]", one of the later episodes of ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'', takes place during Mardi Gras.* In ''Film/{{Barefoot}}'', the protagonist's family is from New Orleans, and the scenes set there were filmed on location.* ''Film/PrettyBaby'' takes place in the former RedLightDistrict of Storyville, shortly before and during when it was shut down in 1917.----